Jessie (Patreon)

The first time I remember, I must have been four. We had just moved into an old farmhouse west of Baltimore. Momma and our new daddy had a big bedroom, and my older sister Janice had a smaller one. I had my own room, but it was really a closet leftover from when the old house had been rebuilt after a fire.

It was certainly better than living with my grandparents in Esau, West Virginia, because we had indoor plumbing. No more spider-filled outhouses! This was in 1949, and I’m still afraid of spiders!

The whole area is all built-up now, and Maryland hardly has any farmland left at all. Not that we did any farming. Daddy worked in the city for the government as an engineer and building inspector. Momma stayed home and took care of us kids while her belly got bigger and bigger with a new baby.

This must have been the week after New Year’s Day because Janice went back to school the next week. It stormed, with rain that froze as soon as it hit something and a wind that went sideways looking for ways to get inside the house. Sleet scrabbled at my one little window, and I shivered under the covers, not used to sleeping alone.

We had all slept in one room in Esau, Momma, Janice, and I, even if it had been on pallets on the floor. I missed Janice’s warmth against my back and even her complaining about my cold feet. “Jesse,” she would say, “your toes are like ice cubes!” And I would giggle because I was warming my icy piggies in that hollow behind her knees on purpose.

But now I had my own room and my own little bed with Janice next door. I wondered a bit about that. Was it something that had just happened? We’d been sleeping together forever—why did it matter because we had a new house now?

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Suddenly there was a thump, and I sat up straight in my lonely bed, staring at the wall my room shared with Momma and Daddy’s room. It thumped again! And again, and again, in a rhythm like Grandpa Labelle pounding nails into a board. Then there was a scream!

When the deep growly laugh came after the scream, I was out of there! It was only three steps, even itty bitty four-year-old ones, from my door to Janice’s, and I dived into her bed, burrowing under her covers, squealing, “Monsters, Jannie! Don’t let ’em eat me!”

We had a struggle then, Janice never was easy to wake up, and she tried to shove me off the bed before she realized it was me.

“Jessie,” she complained. “You’re like ice, and you almost scared the pee out of me!”

“Monsters,” I explained, clinging to her.

“Okay, okay!” she agreed. “You can sleep with me! But what did you do with your pajamas? You’re naked!”

“I dunno,” I said. “They didn’t like me, so they left.”

“What?”

I shrugged, a motion she couldn’t see in the dark and besides, I was completely under the covers, head, eyes and ears. I had pulled the pajamas off in the earlier, warmer part of the night and forgotten about them.

“It’s too cold to sleep without clothes on,” she said.

“Too cold,” I agreed, but she had hold of my ankle and dragged me out from under the covers. “Jannie!” I squealed.

“Jessie,” she scolded, “you even lost your shorties! You’re buck naked!”

“I’m cold,” I reminded her. “Also, monsters!” I pointed at the door.

“Yeah, yeah,” she said, handing me a pair of shorties. “Put those on,” she ordered. We fumbled a bit in the dark, I pulled the shorties up, and she pulled another garment over my head. “You can wear one of my nightgowns, and no one will know you’re not me,” she said giggling.

“It’s dark,” I pointed out. “And I’ll know I’m not you.”

“Get in bed, and shut up.” Always bossy, but at least I didn’t have to go out and fight monsters.

And that’s the first time I remember wearing a dress.

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